Ever since she was a tot, my sister Christine has let me do whatever I want to her hair. When she was in elementary school and I was a budding beautician, she’d show up to second grade with elaborate twists and braids, hair bands and clips and ribbons. I’d go on to supply her with graduation hair, bridesmaid’s hair and any other sort of formal occasion hair she needed and she would always sit patiently while I’d comb, braid and pull her hair in 20 different directions. When I started coloring heads, my sister was one of the first “clients” in my chair and continues to let me do whatever I want. Talk about unlimited options as an artist!

Christine now lives in Hawaii but every time she comes home to visit she makes an appointment to get her hair done. For a while we had been doing a North Shore inspired beachy blonde and she pulled it off beautifully…until it was time to get her hair touched up on Oahu. After one or two questionable salon experiences on the island which turned into not getting her hair done at all, she started rethinking the whole one-length, super long blonde thing and told me that it might be time for “big girl hair.”

Christine Before: 6 months after we had last highlighted her hair

Since Christine was blonde for so long and is often in the sun, I needed to fill in her bleached out ends so the color would last longer than 4 shampoos. We then applied a rich chocolate brown demi-permanent color by Wella Color Touch. My fabulous style partner, Scott Pere, took one look at Christine’s length and decided that 4-5” off the ends and some gorgeous long layers were the way to go with the cut. He blew her hair out with a medium sized round brush and some White Tea Polishing Milk by Shu Uemura.

The end result speaks for itself. Christine got a more sophisticated look that, more importantly, would be easy for her to maintain in Hawaii. I’ve included a picture that she took herself the next morning. To me, that picture says volumes about what a good cut, color and blow out can do. Thanks, as always, to Scott for making my entire family look the best they ever have and to my sister for constantly changing it up.